


Arkham Asylum for Troubled You

by literati42



Category: Batman (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Batfam Week 2018, Brotherly Bonding, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive Behavior, Paranoia, Schizophrenia, Stalker Tim Drake, Suicide Attempt, Tim Drake-centric, Tim drake needs a hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-06-20 15:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15537516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: For Batfam Week 2018: Prompt AUIn Arkham Asylum for Troubled Youth, Tim Drake waits because he was placed there after finding out that billionare Bruce Wayne was Batman. No one believed him. Until now.AU where all the other Batkids are officially adopted, and Tim enters the family in a very different way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are references to suicidal thoughts/attempts, as well as explorations of mental health throughout the story.  
> Also, the pejorative term "crazy" is used at times in the way that characters would use it (aka Tim wondering if he is "crazy"), but it should be noted this term is not an acceptable term for people struggling with mental illness.

The little sphere in his hands weighed little, with bright colored pieces that fit together in an intricate pattern. Tim narrowed his eyes. Pushing on one piece shifted another. He tilted his head to the side, studying the way the patterns fit together. His fingers exploring the edges of the pieces were marred with cuts and raw skin, especially around his nails. Footsteps in the hall, pacing back and forth. The steps rang in his head. “I can’t focus, Kon!” he screamed behind him, shooting a glare back there before focusing on the ball once more. He heard the other boy’s footsteps fade away, down another hall.  
“You are not supposed to yell at the other kids, Mr. Drake,” said a high voice behind him. He heard her heels clamping across the floor and taking a seat across the room from him.  
“I don’t want to talk today, Dr. Quinzel.”  
He glanced at her, blonde hair in a ponytail, notebook perched on her black skirt, her lips and top both her favorite shade of blood red. “That’s too bad. I was hoping we could pick up where we left off yesterday.” She tilted her head, studying him as he had the puzzle moments before. He glanced at her badge, the one that gave her security access to every part of the Arkham Asylum for Troubled Youth. It would be so easy to steal it, to slip out. His mind was calculating every step it would take. “Tell me again about the paranoid thoughts?”  
“I’m not paranoid,” he said, his thoughts snapping back to the moment. “It’s only paranoid if you’re wrong.”  
“You know the drill, Mr. Drake. When you have these thoughts, you weigh the evidence…”  
“You know the evidence,” Tim said, “You’ve seen the files, the articles, the pictures…”  
“Pictures you obtained by stalking.”  
“It’s not stalking,” Tim stood, eyes flashing. “Bruce Wayne is Batman.”  
Harley Quinzel chewed the end of her pencil as she considered him, unmoved by his outburst. “You broke into his private estate. You hacked into the GCPD computer system. You ran an illegal background check on a butler. You recorded phone calls and took pictures.”  
“I had to prove it was him.”  
“You felt you had no choice.”  
Tim sat back, crossing his arms. She was good. She almost pulled him in, again. “No. I don’t want to talk about this. I know my rights.”  
“Mr. Drake, I am your therapist, not a lawyer. This is not about rights, it’s about making you well again.”  
“I’m not sick. I’m right.” Tim tugged on his sleeves, pulling them down over his hands. “I’m right,” he said, curling his legs up onto the chair with him. “I am right.” He heard her give up, something in the shift of her breath. She would give him space, but she would come back. She always came back. “I am right,” he repeated again, letting the mantra settle over him. He had to hold on to it. A shriek rang down the hall. That would be Bart Allen, the boy who thought he was from the future. A girl, Harper Row, was sobbing in the main room down the hall. “I am right,” he said again. Being in a place like this, surrounded by truly sick people, it was almost enough to convince himself that maybe. Maybe he was wrong too. He closed his eyes tight and repeated the words as the world grew dark around him.  
_-_-_  
Tim’s eyes flew open. He felt the movement in the darkness, a slight disruption in the space around him. His hand shot under his pillow and then thrust out. A hand caught his wrist, as a green light filled the room. “Damn, where did you get that?” the hand twisted his wrist slightly to inspect the handmade shank. “Wow. Hardcore.”  
Tim’s eyes slowly adjusted to the light, coming off a military grade glow stick held by another man, standing just behind the first one. “I know you,” he said, looking at the man gripping his wrist. Red helmet, leather jacket. “Red Hood…” His eyes went over to the other, blue and black skin-tight suit. “And you’re Nightwing.”  
He could hear the smile in the Hood’s voice. “That we are. And hey, I am really sorry about this.”  
“Sorry?” He felt a pinch on his neck and turned to see a woman dressed all in black leather. He had enough time to say “Batgirl,” before his whole world tilted sideways.  
_-_-_  
The next time he woke, he was lying on a cold bed in a large room full of more tech than he had ever seen. He sat up slowly, looking around before focusing in on the three people sitting in front of him. Nightwing was perched like a bird on a metal stool, thumbing through a manila folder. Red Hood sat to his left, watching him intently, and the silent presence standing to his right was Batgirl, the new one with the mouth hole sowed shut. His eyes went around the room again. A giant penny, a dinosaur statute, oddly a cow, and a display case full of old uniforms that did not show up in the day-to-day crime-fighting world anymore. An old Robin costume, and one for the former Batgirl.  
“Awake,” Batgirl said, bringing his eyes back to her.  
“That he is,” said Red Hood. Nightwing looked up from the file, and now all the eyes were on Tim.  
“You all work with him. This is the Batman’s…lair.”  
“Bad guys have lairs, this is more a…Batcave,” said Nightwing.  
“It’s kind of a lair,” Hood replied.  
“Cave,” he said. “So we’re outside of town.” He studied their faces, trying to get what he could through their masks. “Near Wayne Manor?” His eyes widened, “Under Wayne Manor?”  
Red Hood exchanged a look with Nightwing. “I told you he was clever.”  
“It’s true. I was right.” Tim let out a laugh that was half relief, half triumph. “I knew it. So that means you are…Dick Wayne,” he said pointing to Nightwing. “Oldest, the circus background before you were adopted and the acrobatics, it makes sense. So you must be…” he pointed to Batgirl, “Cassandra Wayne. His newly adopted daughter, the ASL and your silence…it fits. All the pieces fit.” He closed his eyes, “So the new Robin must be the youngest…”  
“Damian Wayne, true-blooded heir,” said a young voice, as Robin walked over to stand beside Dick, arms crossed. “And for the record, I am very much so against this.”  
Tim looked at him, then his eyes fixed on the last member of the crew. “Who are you then?” The man reached up and pulled off his red helmet, tucking it under his arm. Tim’s eyes widened. “Jason Todd? But you’re…dead.”  
“It was a near thing, but I pulled through,” Jason said. “Joker almost took me out of the equation, so then it made sense for me to disappear for a while.”  
“So, you faked it.”  
Jason nodded, “I wasn’t happy about it at first, but I got benched. Gave me time to be more ready before I started back in the field.”  
Tim shook his head back and forth as if to clear off the cobwebs of his life at the Asylum. All of it, all of his theories were real. He was not crazy. “I knew it. The way you fight, the synchronicity of it. The silent communication. You weren’t a team or some assembled vigilantes. You are a family.” His face clouded. “What I don’t understand is. Your father had me committed for what I knew. Why bring me here now?”  
Dick pulled off the Nightwing mask, revealing the young man beneath. Tim now saw the troubled expression. Dick wrung his mask in his hands. “When we realized what you were doing, that you were getting so close to the truth, we knew we had to do something. But what? It’s not like you were a criminal or even the cops. You were just a kid. And we didn’t act fast enough. Then you got caught, and all your evidence came out.” He looked into Tim’s eyes, his expression pleading. “You have to understand. He only did what he had to, to keep us all safe. If you were just arrested for the stalking and the hacking, your evidence would hold up but if you were…”  
“Considered paranoid schizophrenic and obsessive?”  
Dick cringed. “We never wanted this for you. But Bruce, he would do anything for this city.”  
“Even ruin my life.”  
Dick glanced at Cassie, then to Jason, but Hood had his eyes still fixed on Tim.  
“So, why bring me here now?”  
“Because,” Jason said, “You should not have to suffer just for being right.”  
“I thought we should leave you to rot,” Damian said, crossing his arms. “After all, you caused enough problems for this family. Do you know how much work it has been to distance ourselves from the rumors you started?”  
“It was never my intention to tell anyone,” Tim said.  
“But you were sloppy. You got caught,” Damian said.  
Jason raised a hand, “Enough.”  
“Why did you look into us?” Dick asked.  
Tim shrugged slightly, tugging at his shirt sleeves. “I…I see patterns. I just do, and I can’t let them go once I see them. I had to know.”  
Dick frowned, “The thing that always bugged me about your case was how you got caught. You were clever, we didn’t even realize you were stalking us at first.” Tim cringed at the word, but Dick kept on. He lifted the file. “So, I was reading through this, trying to get answers. I get that the paranoia, the schizophrenia had to do with the case Bruce made. I always assumed the police caught you hacking their systems, but that’s not what’s in here.” He lifted the file. Tim saw on the other faces that no one else knew what was in the file. “It says you tried to kill yourself. Why? How could that have been faked?” He narrowed his eyes at Tim’s sleeves. “Did you?”  
“No. It was Joker.”  
Dick and Jason exchanged looks. “The Joker?”  
“He attacked me.”  
“Joker attacked you…before your hearing…when you were on house arrest?” Dick said. “How did no one find out about this?”  
“Why would he attack you?” Jason said.  
“He made it look like I hurt myself, I don’t know why. Maybe he didn’t want Bruce’s secret out either? Some kind of obsession thing?”  
Tim watched the men exchange looks again and then saw them both staring at his hands. He tugged his sleeves over them. “You of all people know what he’s capable of,” Tim said, looking to Jason.  
“Yeah…”  
“Usually that is not subtlety,” said Damian.  
“What do you plan to do with me?” Tim said, rubbing his arms against the chill of the cave.  
“Right now, just keep you here until we figure this out,” Dick said. Tim watched Cass walk away to one of the workstations, she came back a moment later with a blanket and a mug of coffee, offering it to him. He pulled the blanket around him and then accepted the mug, letting it warm his frigid hands. “You stay. We talk.” Tim nodded slowly.  
_-_-_  
Dick lowered his voice, “Jay, I know you feel connected to this kid but…what if he really is…unstable.”  
“His evidence was good, Dick. Scary good.”  
“But he did stalk us, and break into the manor,” Damian said.  
“We’ve been making a huge leap of logic,” Dick replied, “We’ve been assuming that since he is right, he is not cr…unwell.”  
“Dick,” Jason said, slowly as if explaining to a child. “The only reason the world thinks Tim’s crazy is because we told them he was wrong. Because we made it seem untrue, he seems to have been obsessively stalking an innocent man. That kid believed he was being followed because we were following him, maybe the Joker even was too. He wasn’t actually paranoid. It was all true.”  
“Do we actually know that Bruce faked his illness?” Dick said. “Did he tell any of you he was doing that?”  
“Bruce, sharing his plans? Imagine that.”  
Dick shook his head, “We all just assumed when Bruce pushed for the psychological testing it was to protect us. We assumed, but what if it was true?”  
“And the accusations about the Joker seem even less likely. was no extravagance to the crime, no signature. We have never seen the Joker have that type of restraint” Damian said.  
“And his arms,” said Dick.  
“You can fake a suicide,” Jason replied  
Dick closed his eyes, as if pained. He held up the file and pulled out a picture. It was a police photo, a close up of Tim’s arms when they brought him in. “Those cuts could still be faked, maybe he was drugged first, so he didn’t struggle,” Jason said.  
“Look closer.”  
Damian leaned over, “There are older wounds.”  
“If the Joker made the new ones, who made the old ones?” Dick said.  
“You’re saying you believe he really did try to kill himself?” Jason said, slowly.  
“Both,” Cass said, as their eyes shifted to her, she expanded, signing them the rest of her thought, “Two things can be true.”  
“He can be a good detective,” Dick said, “And unstable.” He looked into each pair of eyes and then turned, watching the boy sitting on the med bay bed, nursing a cup of coffee. “If it was true, Bruce is going to be furious.”  
“Father will be furious either way,” Damian said.  
“So, what do we do now?” Jason asked.


	2. Breaking Point

Jason dropped onto the balcony outside the window and peered in at the target. He saw the dark-haired teenage super sleuth sitting at his desk. The teen packing enough brain power to give Bruce a run for his money, and Jason was here to find what he could on him. He wondered what he was expected to see. Over the course of a week, the family followed him every day, hacked into his every file. Jason watched through the window and thought of all the information he poured over the night before.  
Tim Drake, age 15. His grades were nothing to be impressed by, sometimes spiking and sometimes dropping to where he seemed on paper perfectly average. Dick wondered out loud if that was a way for Tim to hide his genius like his own secret identity of sorts, but Jason had his doubts. If he was hiding, why not aim for the middle instead of either tanking or blowing their socks off?   
Jason peeked inside the room and saw Tim stand. The teen walked to his closet and pulled it open. Jason watched as he detached a shelf full of clothes that should not have been so easy to remove. He sat this aside, ignoring the wrinkles it would cause and stared at the back wall. Jason had a feeling he knew where Tim was keeping the evidence he had on them.   
Tim came out, replaced the shelf and headed into the hall. Now or never. Jason eyed the window. A red light showed the motion detector Dick found on his first stalk to Tim’s window. There were cameras inside too.   
“What kind of teenager had motion sensors on his window?” Jason asked when the family told him about this new development.   
Jason lifted the scrambler Oracle gave him and set it off. The motion sensors and cameras should show a glitch, but it would not show Jason. He pried the window open quietly and made his way across the room. He lifted the shelf, feeling a latch come undone, and sat it aside. There inside the closest was a wall of evidence. Everything was there. Photos. Articles. Snippets about the life of billionare Bruce Wayne and his children. Jason let out a breath.   
He quickly snapped a few pictures just as he heard something outside the door. He ran for the window, closing it behind him and pressing himself against the outside wall just as Tim opened the door. He did not hear Tim approaching (the kid was silent as he walked) until the window came open. Jason had seconds to pull himself up on the line he left there for his escape, just coasting above Tim’s line of sight. “Yeah,” Tim said, stepping out on the balcony. He leaned on the rail, a phone pressed to his ear. “And then you’ll go to Haiti tomorrow?” Tim’s tone was perfectly measured, neutral, but he rubbed his brow as he spoke. “Of course. Father I…” Whatever he was saying was the first sense of emotion he gave off, but it snapped shut. “Understood.” He hung up without a goodbye. He rested his head in his hands, looking like a weight was pressing down on him.  
Jason pulled himself the rest of the way onto the roof, not wanting to push his luck by hanging directly above the teen. It was good timing because Tim looked up. Jason could see him but was reasonably sure the shadows prevented Tim from seeing any trace of him in return. “Hello?” Tim stepped back, “Is someone there?” Tim’s eyes narrowed.  
Shit. The kid was climbing up.  
Jason took off, swinging down from the roof and quickly detaching the grappling hook. He hid in the shadows of the house just as the shape of the teen appeared on the edge of the roof. Damn, smart and fast.  
On the way back to the Cave, Jason thought about everything in the file they compiled on the kid. Despite Tim’s grades, it was obvious he was brilliant if one took a closer look. They traced anonymous tips to the police back to the teen, tips that lead to breaks in otherwise stalled cases. They found every paper he ever wrote. Certainly some of them contained next to no effort, but once in a while, a piece of the real Tim Drake appeared. Jason smiled slightly when he thought of the paper from 7-year-old Tim about how all he wanted in the world was to be a detective. He wanted to help people. He wanted to protect this city.   
_-_-_  
“How could you do this?” Jason shouted, even as his words were met with dead silence. Jason was furious with Bruce, not that this was anything new. There were so many cracks in their relationship, so many. Neither one of them could entirely quit the other, neither entirely forgive the other. So they circled, again and again, fighting and only half making up. Being okay for a moment and mad again the next. Jason knew it was exhausting for his siblings, hell, it was exhausting for him and Bruce too. They never had their footing in each other’s lives.   
Bruce was silent against his second son’s yelling. “It had to be,” was all he said after a long stretch.  
“How could this be what you had to do?” Jason said. All he could think about was staking out Tim Drake’s home. He remembered the evidence they followed to the brilliant mind. He also remembered a frustrated teenager on the balcony of a big house, hiding any trace of emotion in his voice while talking to his parents. Tim Drake. Who wanted to be a detective, but now he never would be. Because of them. “We’re ruining his life for no reason!” Bruce turned and looked at him. Jason stared into those impenetrable eyes.   
“It is not that simple.”  
“How is it not simple? You’re sending that kid away to protect your secrets. Doesn’t sound like something a good guy would do, does it?”  
Bruce shook his head, “For someone who claims to live in shades of grey, everything is always so black and white with you, isn’t it Jason?”  
“What is that supposed to mean?”  
Bruce sighed. “The boy is where he needs to be.” He walked out of the room, shutting down any further conversation.   
Later that night, when Nightwing arrived home from patrolling, Jason told him what he was going to do. They would not let Tim rot in the Asylum for this.  
_-_-_  
“What are we going to do?” Jason’s words hung in the air between them as he watched the teenager. He thought over all the moments, over every fact he knows about Tim Drake. Was it possible he missed something that Bruce saw?  
“If what he says is true, then the Joker wants him dead,” Dick said, “If what he says isn’t true, then the kid is a danger to himself. We have to keep him here. Watch him.”   
Jason looked at Dick for a long moment and then left. “Jay…” He walked away from his brother’s voice and over to the teen. In his mind, a different conversation was playing. The words that Bruce said. He said Tim was where he belonged in the Asylum. Tim looked up at Jason over the mug of coffee, looking smaller now wrapped in the blanket, and Jason could not believe those words. That could not be where he belonged. Jason Todd would not accept that.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:  
Sometimes Dick’s father made him want to scream. There was a time when he would do it too. When he first found the Robin mantel too rigid, and he first started venturing out as Nightwing, he fought with Bruce regularly. There was always arguments, always condescending warnings, always different takes on any situation. Bruce could be bullheaded, self-righteous, and enigmatic to the point of absurdity. Despite that, they were family, and after a mutual cooling down period, Dick would make his way back home. Then Jason joined their family and the dynamic shifted. Jason was not like Dick, testing the limits or pushing the questions into focus. No, he was angry on a level Dick sometimes found troubling. He let loose that anger on anyone and rarely seemed to need a reason. Dick watched Bruce and felt the first pangs of sympathy. Dick may have rebelled in his own way, but he knew he was a walk in the park compared to Jason.   
Then Jason nearly died, and went through a long, painful recovery. During that time, Cassie and Damian joined their family and everything shifted again. Dick still had the same issues with Bruce, but he found himself side-stepping them more than confronting them head on. He was the glue of their family, after all. He swooped in to mend the hurts and ease the tensions between all the strong personalities in the Manor.   
Maybe that is why Bruce told him about the kid first.  
Dick stared at him, “Jason is going to be furious,” he said. He was furious too, but he and Bruce weathered a lot of fights, while Jason and Bruce always seemed to hang on by a thread. He stood, not letting his father answer. “You better be sure,” he said, leaving the room.   
_-_-_  
Dick stared into his younger brother’s baby blues. “You want to break him out?”  
“We can’t leave him in there, he deserves better,” Jason said, and once again Dick felt himself forced into the position of defending Bruce’s actions, even when he did not agree with them himself. He opened his mouth, words forming to ask the questions he knew he should ask. What details were they missing? What consequences would there be? And most importantly, what would they do with a brilliant and damaged teenager once they got him free? Dick slowly closed his mouth, keeping the words inside. He ran a hand through his hair, realizing he could not do it this time.   
He was so sick of cleaning up all of Bruce’s messes.  
“If we do this, we do this together. If we do this, we tell the others.”  
Jason’s face went from closed off and defensive to shocked and then landed on a slowly spreading smile. They were going to do this.   
_-_-_  
Dick watched Jason walk across the cave to the boy in the shock blanket, and slowly he turned to his other siblings.  
“Walk me through it one time more,” Cassie signed. Dick took a deep breath.  
“Tim claimed Joker attacked him while he was on house arrest and made it look like attempted suicide. We also know, that a suicide attempt is how the police caught him in the first place.”  
“Then his time line does not fit,” Damian said.  
“Or…”  
“Or,” Cassie signed, “There were two incidents.”  
“And then there are the scars in the photos,” Dick said, “Older still than either of those events.”  
“Making it incredibly unlikely the Joker had anything to do with it, as I have repeatedly said,” said Damian. “Which makes him either crazy or a liar.” Dick sighed again, glancing over at his sister. She raised an eyebrow slightly.  
“You think I should go talk to Bruce.”  
She tilted her head slightly.  
“I know, he’ll find out eventually,” Dick closed his eyes. “Okay. I’ll talk to him. Keep an eye on Jay. And Dami…” he looked to the youngest Wayne sibling, “Don’t do anything rash.” Dick took a deep breath and headed for the stairs to ascend into the Mansion above.

**Author's Note:**

> If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors, please contact the National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
> 
> If you want more information about depression please go to the National Institute of Mental Health  
> https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression/index.shtml  
> or the incredible organization To Write Love on Her Arms  
> https://twloha.com/
> 
> For information of schizophrenia go to National Institute of Mental Health  
> https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml  
> or NAMI  
> https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/schizophrenia


End file.
